Saturday, December 22, 2012

Chris Dodd of the MPAA responds, sort of, to Danny Bloom's OPEN LETTER TO CHRIS DODD OF THE MPAA ON REMOVING GUN SCENES FROM MOVIES IN THE FUTURE

Dear Dan,

In your ''Open Letter to the MPAA's Chris Dodd: Get Rid of the Guns'' -- which by the way I enjoyed reading online -- you suggested the impossible: removing all scenes of guns being handled and guns firing from future movie scenes in major Hollywood productions. Are you crazy? Are you serious? Do you really think the money-dreaming bosses of the Hollywood studios are going to even listen to your cockamamie idea and concept, even it is well intentioned and passionate? You must be dreaming, lad.

Look, Dan, Hollywood is about profits. Money and profits. Product. Sex sells and so do violent movies. So your idea is dead in the water, pal. When you write that Hollywood is ready to participate in a meaningful dialogue about gun violence after the Sandy Hook Massacre in Newtown, Conn, you are mistaken, Dan. Hollywood does not give a rat's derriere about dead people. Show me the money, mate! That's all we are about. You know that.


Dan, you said you wrote your letter to me as a friend of Hollywood and with the hope that maybe something can be done to take guns and gun scenes out of future Hollywood movies -- on a voluntary studio basis, of course.

You also said you are not Jonathan Swift of yore with a "Modest Proposal" for eating babies to solve the hunger crisis in Ireland. I think you are trying to be a modern Swift. It doesn't work this time, Dan.

I agree with you and guns and violence and I also feel that the time has come to rethink the way we make and show our filmed entertainment. Sure. But remove all scenes of guns and guns firing from future movies?

You gotta be kidding!

Sure, Dan, I said: "Those of us in the motion-picture and television industry want to do our part to help America heal. We stand ready to be part of the national conversation."

But that was just PR. We do not give a damn. Bottom line: profits.
Dan, you told me you are calling your citizens' lobby group on this issue SGIH, for Stop Guns in Hollywood.

God help you, sir. God knows, I can't do a thing, even though I run the MPAA. Do you think the studios
will listen to me. They own me.

Sincerely,

Christopher D. Dodd
CEO MPAA

TO SEE THE ORIGINAL LETTER TO WHICH MR DODD IS IMAGINATIVELY REPLYING HERE:

http://movies.yahoo.com/news/open-letter-mpaas-chris-dodd-rid-guns-182958658.html


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Dan,

Is this really a reply from the real Chris Dodd? President of the Motion Picture Association of America?

If so you should go viral with it. It's a huge achievement to get such a reply, and what's more his letter adds fuel to YOUR fire, not to his. I

hope you're able to quote it in full, and are writing endless articles for the major US (and other) papers about your proposal and his response.

Congratulations anyway.